Tag Archives: Toby Huss

Happy Halloween!!! I have reviewed A LOT of Halloween movies! They’re pretty… pretty good This one’s good, This one’s not badthis one’s probably my best. This Halloween movie was …. well … fine. There’s a spectrum of Halloween franchise films. Some are amazing, some are epically terrible, and some are fine. Not terrible, just ok. This is in the meh category, but like much of life itself- kinda dull and disappointing as you slowly degrade towards the infinite.

Michael in an insane asylum and about to be transferred….again, but to make it different this time annoying podcasters interview him first. So…. it’s kinda new? But really, this guy escapes custody more than El Chapo, but they keep moving him around movie after movie after movie. I know that this movie is supposed to disregard all the ones after the first one, but that really is just an excuse to recycle the old tropes. I wish they’d taken another route like they did in H20, which is still amazing and holds up really well.

The big change is that Laurie Strode has been waiting for Michael’s inevitable escape. She turned her home in a fortress with all kinds of booby traps. She has an arsenal that my grandma would’ve been proud to see. Unfortunately, it drove Laurie to raise her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) like a special forces recruit and always afraid and a quasi-prisoner. Karen, now an adult with a family of her own, wants nothing to do with her gung ho mom, but her Karen’s daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) wants the family to reunite by inviting her to mom to dinner and it goes…yikes.

The unsung character of the movie that provides the only comic relief was Karen’s husband Ray (Toby Huss) who got not a tear from anyone when Michael made short work of him. Really, no one cared at all about the dad getting killed, not the wife or the daughter; only Michael seemed to care and he murdered the guy. Poor dads, we’re just cast aside like old meat- no one cares.

The movie have A LOT of bad decisions; if bad boxers lead with their chins, these guys led with their necks. I guess that’s why it was tough for me to feel sympathetic for the victims because they were so dumb that I figured something else would’ve gotten these walking Darwin Awards: stopping on railroad tracks, taking a selfie in a lion enclosure at a zoo, or getting eaten by a Labrador Retriever…somehow.

Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) has been obsessed with flying ever since he was a child in Germany. Towards the end of World War II, while his native country burned around him, Dieter would stare up at the skies and watch the American planes fly overhead and he knew that was not only what he wanted to do someday but also who he wanted to do it for. Jump forward two decades, to 1966. Dengler is now a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, an always smiling optimist who is considered to be something of a wild man. When Dengler is reported as having been shot down over Loas, his fellow pilots are not only convinced that Dengler survived but that he’ll also eventually escape captivity. Why? Because they now Dieter Dengler is not the type to give up.

And they’re right. Dengler not only survives the crash but he also survives in the wild. After growing up in the rubble of Germany, Dengler is confident that he can survive anything. Even when he’s finally captured by communist rebels, Dengler remains optimistic that he’ll make it back home. When he’s told that he can go free if he signs a statement denouncing the United States, he refuses. Dengler’s not going to turn on the country that allows him to fly. Dengler soon finds himself being held in a POW camp with four other men, including two other Americans (played by Jeremy Davies and Steve Zahn). The guards are determined to break Dengler but he’s just as determined to escape. Hearing that it’s impossible to do so only makes Dengler more determined.

The story of Dieter Dengler and his eventual escape from captivity was originally told, by Dengler himself, in Werner Herzog’s 1997 documentary, Little Dieter Needs To Fly. That Herzog saw Dengler as a kindred spirit is evident in the fact that, 9 years after the documentary, Herzog again told Dengler’s story in the 2006 film, Rescue Dawn.

On the face of it, a story about a group of Americans escaping from a POW camp might sound like an unlikely topic for a Werner Herzog film but it doesn’t take long for Herzog to put his own distinctive stamp on the project. As played by Bale, Dengler is another one of Herzog’s obessessive heroes. Dengler’s obsession is not just with flying but also with being free. For Dengler, that’s what being an American means and that’s why he would rather be tortured than sign a simple piece of paper denying the existence of that freedom. Much as how Grizzly Man portrayed Timothy Treadwell as being a man who would rather be eaten by a bear than live a life that’s been dictated by others, Dengler would rather suffer than betray his adopted country.

Rescue Dawn also centers around another common Herzog theme, the pitilessness of nature. Watching Dengler trying to make his way through the jungle, we’re reminded that nature will always win in the end. In Herzog’s world, neither nature nor the universe as a whole has any ideology. Long after every warrior has died, the film tells us, nature will still be there. The one thing that the POWs and their captors have in common is that they’re all at the mercy of the chaos of nature. Just as the jungle threatens to swallow up Dengler and the other prisoners, their captors are slowly starving to death due to a drought. As filmed by Herzog, the jungle is both beautiful and overwhelming. Even at the film’s triumphant conclusion, it’s hard not to feel that, for all the planning, Dengler’s escape and survival was due to the random chaos of the universe. How much can we control and how much must we simply leave up to the whim of nature?

Bale, Davies, and Zahn all give excellent performances and Herzog keeps the story moving quickly. It’s probably one of his most emotionally accessible films and it’s impossible not to shed a tear at that final scene. That said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that there’s a good deal of controversy about the way that Rescue Dawn portrays Gene DeBruin, the POW played by Jeremy Davies. The film often contrasts Dengler with DeBruin. If Dengler is always hopeful and determined, DeBruin is portrayed as being unstable and unreliable. However, by most accounts — including the one given by another one of the prisoners — DeBruin was actually the exact opposite of how he was portrayed in the film. Instead of being selfish, he was a source of strength for the POWs and he actually refused to take advantage of a previous chance to escape because it would have meant abandoning the rest of the prisoners. Herzog has said that he wasn’t aware of DeBruin’s heroism when he wrote and directed the film and that he now regrets the way that DeBruin was portrayed. (DeBruin’s brother has said that Herzog refused to talk to the family while the film was in poduction.) Rescue Dawn is a well-made and wonderfully acted film and it’s one that always brings tears to my mismatched eyes but, while watching it, it’s impossible not to regret the injustice that was done to Gene DeBruin.

It’s the date for the latest entry to the Halloween franchise. It’s to be a sequel to the original film. It will also discard every other Halloween sequel ever made. So, for those who are so anti-remake/reboot this should alleviate any of those triggers.

David Gordon Green (who co-wrote this sequel with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley) directs this sequel as a continuation of the events which happened with the original film. A follow-up that’s 40 years in the making, literally.

So, once again, remember October 19th and make sure to check this film out. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’ll be the true sequel to Carpenter’s classic.

If you need any further proof that 2016 is a screwed-up year, just consider the fact that Ghostbusters, an entertaining but ultimately rather mild-mannered and innocuous summer action/comedy, has become the center of one of the biggest controversies of the year.

It all started, of course, when the reboot was first announced. Fanboys reacted with outrage, offended that Hollywood would even consider remaking a film that was apparently one of the defining moments of their childhood. Then, it was announced that Ghostbusters would feature an all-female cast and it would be directed by Paul Feig, the director of Bridesmaids. The howls of outrage grew even louder. Then that infamous trailer was released and even I felt that trailer sucked. I wasn not alone because the trailer quickly became one of the most disliked videos in the history of YouTube. Reading the comments underneath that trailer was literally like finding yourself trapped in a production of Marat/Sade.

Suddenly, in the eyes of very vocal group of internet trolls, the reboot of Ghostbusters went from being simply another dubious idea to being a crime against humanity. And the trolls were so obnoxious that they managed to turn this big-budget, studio-backed production into an underdog. Here was a movie directed by one of Hollywood’s biggest directors and starring some of Hollywood’s hottest stars and suddenly, it had become David in a biblical showdown with the Goliaths of internet.

And then it happened. Earlier last week, Ghostbusters was finally screened for critics. The first reviews started to come in and they were surprisingly positive. In fact, they were so positive that I found myself distrusting them. I found myself wondering if critics were reacting to the film or if they were simply trying to prove that they were better than the trolls who leave obscene comments on YouTube.

Which was true, I wondered. Was Ghostbusters the worst film ever made or was it the greatest? Or was it perhaps just possible that Ghostbusters would turn out to be a typical summer film?

With all the controversy, it’s tempting to overpraise a film like Ghostbusters. Battle lines have been drawn and sometimes, I feel as if I’m being told that failing to declare Ghostbusters to be the greatest and most important comedy of all time is the equivalent of letting the trolls win.

Well, that’s not true. Ghostbusters is not the greatest or the most important comedy of all time but you know what? Ghostbusters is good. Ghostbusters is entertaining. Especially during the first half, it’s full of laugh out loud moments. At times, Ghostbusters is everything that you could hope for.

No, it’s not a perfect film. Paul Feig is a great comedy director but, in this film at least, his direction of the big action sequences often feels uninspired (especially when compared to his previous work on Spy). The final fourth of the film gets bogged down in CGI and the film goes from being a clever comedy to being just another summer spectacle. Even the one-liners, which flowed so naturally at the start of the film, feel forced during the final half of the film. Ghostbusters is good but it never quite becomes great.

Here’s what did work: the cast. As he previously proved with Bridesmaids, Paul Feig is a director who is uniquely skilled at creating and showcasing a strong comedic ensemble. Kristen Wiig plays Erin Gilbert, who is denied tenure at Columbia when it is discovered that a book she wrote on the paranormal has been republished and is being sold, on Amazon, by her former best friend, Dr. Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy). When Erin goes to confront Abby, she not only meets Abby’s newest colleague, Dr. Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) but she also gets dragged into investigating an actual case of paranormal activity.. Soon, Erin, Abby, and Holtzmann are investigating hauntings and capturing ghosts, all with the secret approval of the Mayor of New York (Andy Garcia). Of course, for PR reasons, the mayor’s office has to continually disavow the Ghostbusters and occasionally have them arrested. Working alongside the three scientists are Patty (Leslie Jones), who apparently knows the history of every building in New York, and Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), their adorably stupid receptionist.

As written, both Patty and Kevin are fairly thin characters. Kevin’s the handsome dumb guy. Patty is streetwise and sassy. But both Hemsworth and Jones give such enthusiastic and sincere performances that they transcend the stereotypical nature of their roles. At times, Kevin runs the risk of becoming too cartoonish for even a Ghostbusters film. But if you can’t laugh at Chris Hemsworth explaining that he took the lenses out of his glasses because they were always getting dirty, what can you laugh at?

Erin is an interesting character and Kristen Wiig deserves a lot of credit for her performance. Erin is actually given a fairly affecting backstory, centering around how she was haunted by the ghost of the old woman who used to live next door to her. Erin is a former believer, someone who, in order to succeed in the “real” world, gave up her beliefs and conformed to the expectations of society. When she actually meets a ghost, it’s more than just a confirmation of the supernatural. It’s a chance for Erin to finally embrace who she truly is and what she truly cares about. When she and the other ghostbusters chase after evil spirits, Erin is not just doing a job. Instead, she’s finally found somewhere where she belongs. She no longer has to pretend to be someone that she isn’t. Wiig plays the role with just the right touch of neurotic wonder. She grounds the entire film.

But the true star of the film is Kate McKinnon. Whether she’s cheerfully smiling as a ghost vomits all over her colleagues or cheerfully explaining how easily their equipment could kill them all, Holtzmann is the greatest character in the film and McKinnon gives the best performance. If Wiig grounds the film, McKinnon provides it with a truly demented soul.

The first half of the movie, which focuses on the relationships between the characters and features snappy and endlessly quotable dialogue, is wonderful and I was thrilled while watching it, convinced that the entire movie would be as good as the first hour. However, the second half of the film gets bogged down in a rather predictable plot and the final action sequences could have just as easily been lifted from Pixels or one of The Avengers movies. The surviving cast of the original Ghostbusters all show up in cameos that are, at best, inoffensive and, at worst, groan-worthy. The end result is rather uneven. If the film had maintained the momentum of that first hour, it would be a classic. But that second half transforms it into just another entertaining but not quite memorable summer action film.

That said, Paul Feig is an excellent comedy director and let’s hope that he never gets so self-important that he ends up turning into Jay Roach. Hopefully, if there is a sequel, Feig will return to direct it and Kate McKinnon will have an even bigger role.